Intel's Sandy Bridge CPUs were launched in January and so far, the desktop i7 lineup has consisted of three SKUs: i7-2600, i7-2600K and i7-2600S. Earlier this week, Intel released 16 new Sandy Bridge CPUs, but the desktop i7 series remained unchanged. Yesterday, Intel updated their Material Declaration Data Sheets (MDDS) with product code for i7-2700K. The exact product code is:

BX80623I72700K SR0DG

For comparison, the product code for i5-2500 is:

BX80623I52500 SR00T

Lets break down the product codes. The first two letters, "BX", stand for boxed unit. These letters would be different if the unit wasn't a boxed unit, for example "FF" is for non-boxed PGA988 units. There could be a third letter "C" which means it's a boxed unit for China market (hence there are two product codes for i7-2700K). After that, there is a five number code "80623". This is a specific code for all boxed desktop Sandy Bridge CPUs. Finally we get to the processor number which is the most interesting part and in this case, revealed the i7-2700K. There is still a separate spec code after the processor number and it's processor specific as well.

The specs of i7-2700K are unknown though. It's also a question whether there will be i7-2700 and i7-2700S or not. However, we would expect i7-2700K to carry similar specs as i7-2600K (four cores, Hyper-Threading, unlocked multiplier, 8MB L3...), but a slightly higher default frequency. Given Intel's history, 100MHz (one multiplier) increase sounds likely, making i7-2700K's stock frequency 3.5GHz with up to 3.9GHz Turbo. Price wise i7-2700K should also replace i7-2600K, making its price ~$317.

There is no word on the availability of i7-2700K. Leaked roadmaps suggest something equal or better than i7-2600K between Q3'11 and Q1'12. Considering that Intel just released new CPUs a few days ago, it seems unlikely that the release is imminent. On the other hand, it makes no sense to release i7-2700K just before Ivy Bridge, thus our guess would be Q4'11, around the same time as AMD's Bulldozer hits the shelves.